WinFS Sync and Backup

Julia Lerman reports the question: in the world of WinFS “How the heck is the average user going to know how to backup their files?”

We are working with backup vendors to great backup support in WinFS. User's won't have to know where their files are in order to back them up. The same powerful query capability they use to find their items can be used to identify the items to backup. The system should take care of the rest.

But there is another WinFS feature that we hasn't come up in recent discussions: sync. The fact is, many users don't own or use backup software. The really advanced ones occasionally copy their important files to a CD or DVD. Some people have a couple PCs at home and mirror content between them (everyone who does as your primary backup of data at home, please this raise your hand... see I knew there were a lot of you).

This is where sync comes in. In WinFS you'll be able to easily tell the system to replicate a set of items to another WinFS store, and ask the system to keep them in sync. Viola... instant backup. Not everything you get with a real backup solution (archiving, single item restore, etc.), but certainly sufficient to “back up [the latest chapter of your mom's book/the puppy pictures/the emails from clients].”